Estimation of foreign tourists’ willingness to pay for conservation of threatened species in Serengeti national park, Tanzania
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Date
2022
Authors
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Willingness to pay studies are common studies that are done worldwide for various reasons.
Normally before setting new prices the study of this kind is conducted so as to measure
readiness and how much should be added without compromising service consumption.
Therefore this study was conducted in Serengeti ecosystem with overall objective of
estimating foreign tourists’ willingness to pay (WTP) for conservation of threatened species.
The study aimed specifically at, solving financial constraint to conservation of threatened
species through; finding out the level of foreign tourists’ WTP, determining factors that
influence foreign tourists’ WTP and assessing the influence of satisfaction level with animal
species on WTP. A sample size of 145 respondents was purposively drawn to represent
entire population. Primary and secondary data for this study were collected through semi-
structured questionnaire, key informants interview and direct observation and then analyzed
with descriptive statistics, multiple linear regression and content analysis. Findings indicated
that 63% of the respondents showed a WTP additional amount for conservation of threatened
species, out of which 52.6% were willing to pay up to 60 USD more. It also showed that
parameters of respondents’ age and education were found to be statistically significant at
0.01 level of significance, whereby respondents’ average income per month were statistically
significant at 0.05 level of significance. However findings revealed that there was an inverse
relationship between WTP and respondents’ age. This was perhaps due to the fact that older
tourists have less income compared to younger ones, thereby leading to low level of WTP.
Moreover findings showed that R 2 = 0.536 implying that 53.6% of the variation in dependent
variable willingness to pay, was explained by the variables included in the model.
Satisfaction level with animal species also appeared to have influence on WTP by 89% of
the respondents who ranked it as “highest” and “high”. Therefore, the study recommended
that an additional amount could be introduced as new entrance fee, proper implementation
and facilitation of wildlife watching tourism, strategic marketing and educating the community on conservation. Doing this would ensure the survival of threatened species
hence sustainable tourism activities in Tanzania.
Description
Dissertation
Keywords
Foreign tourists, Serengeti, Animal species, Tanzania national park, Animal conservation